I had been hanging onto the shed in the garden for a long time. It was definitely past its best. A couple of years ago I gave it a new lease of life by re-roofing it and levelling it up where it had slumped in one corner. However, the tongue and grooved boards had shrunk so much in the sun that they were letting in water in the rain. I thought about replacing the cladding, maybe with shingles but the final straw was when I realised that the walls were rotting from the bottom up.

I dismantled the shed and took it to the tip at the beginning of the summer and started a plan to replace it. The shed was 8x6 foot, but there was a lot of space behind and next to it as well. I went through a lot of iterations in my plans. I started with grand plans for a sunken rammed chalk construction eco-structure. There were lots of advantages, not least cost, available construction materials and thermal mass. In the end though I realised I probably wouldn't have time to do it and that it would turn the garden into a building site for the best part of a year. Maybe one day.

Next thought was a shed-greenhouse. The shed for storage and the greenhouse for starting off plants and growing a few more sensitive plants. It didn't take long to realise that the cost would be much more than the price of a shed or greenhouse alone. I briefly thought about building a greenhouse onto the end of a shed with some reclaimed windows from my neighbours house, but couldn't quite make it work.

Someone suggested a polytunnel and I realised that I could get something the size of a combined shed and greenhouse for the less than the price of a decent large shed. After a bit of research I settled on a 10x15 foot one. It was a bit of a squeeze and it took some work to clear the ground and some old leylandii trees. With that size I could store the essentials from the shed and grow a range of crops that would complement the produce from the forest garden (thanks to everyone on the forest gardening yahoo group for their advice on crops).

It took a few weekends to put up. The hardest part was digging eight deep holes right into the chalk for anchoring the poles. After that it was fairly easy. The cover is now on and the doors in place. I still need to add some edges to the beds inside, put up some staging and to fix a board to hold tools. Hopefully I'll be finished in time to plant some winter salads. I'll keep you posted.